"I will agree that in a long-term SSM, where the husband is the higher-desire partner and he gets turned down regularly and repeatedly over the years, there will be damage to his sense of masculinity."
This is the big sexual taboo of our times. The man ends up feeling like "damaged goods". It is like a heavy stone that he drags with him everywhere he goes. It pulls down every area of his life. It can lead to very serious psychological problems - I've peered over that particular precipice - its not a pretty sight. If the typical "not tonight dear" (or the night after that) wife knew how much damage she'd caused to a man's self-esteem, I imagine she'd be pretty distraught. But - pity, tears, shame and guilt are not aphrodisiacs. The "look what you've done to me" approach to kick-starting a sex-life doesn't work. Instead, the man has to renew himself and make himself the force of nature god intended him to be. There has to be strength and energy and joy in all he does. He has to get to a mental, physical and spiritual state in which he does not take rejections (too) personally. Sex is no longer a need but it is something he wants. He is strong enough to live without it, but also strong enough to leave a sexless marriage. That cocktail of freestanding strength, passion and perhaps even a dash of ruthlessness, is what many women are looking for.
"To be a bit tongue-in-cheek, this strong, feminine woman wants a strong, masculine man to push against --> and when she pushes, I had better not budge!"
You are a very lucky man - so is your wife.
"A man can be destroyed but not defeated" - from The Old Man and the Sea, by Ernest Hemingway.
Which I take to mean that every man has within him a spirit of relentlessness and optimism. Its already there; he just has to cultivate it.
